“Recent developments in solar cells- perovskites”

November 17 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PST

Harvesting energy from sunlight continues to be an active area of research which has the potential to benefit society at large. The best silicon-based solar cells have efficiencies around 25% after decades of research. Recently, solar cells based on materials which adopt a structure analogous to the mineral perovskite have shown the potential for high-efficiency conversion of light to electricity. This talk will illustrate the basics of how a solar cell works, why the perovskite structure seems to work for this application, and the various pros and cons of the particular varieties of perovskite used in such cells.